A Heart for the Hutt
by Akktri
Summary: The story of Salacious Crumb
1. Chapter 1: A New Friend

I and Jabba have been friends for a long time. As far back as I can remember, our friendship has been a symbiotic one.

I remember a time when Jabba was actually _small_.

He wasn't always the immense cruel monster of rebel legends. He actually had _heart_ , and, dare I say it, _tenderness_.

My earliest memory is of the avian visages of my parents peering at me through the first crack in the egg I'd been born from.

My mother and father were beautiful Kowakians, their beaks a wonderful charcoal black, bent in that noble expression of sourness so highly sought in any male or female of our species. Their necks were long and slender, like mine, their plumage the rich dusty tan-brown of the Hiskuvu plain at noon, during a dust storm, their skin a lovely olive green.

The first word I heard father say to me was "Salacious." It was also the last word he ever said. I'm still not sure what it meant. Perhaps he was making a comment about my mother's sexual behavior. At the time, however, I thought he was naming me.

My family's nest lay in a rock outcrop in the dusty rocky wasteland of Mos Eisley. It was quiet out where I was, a desolate little mound of rocks where Kowakians could breed and lay their eggs and pick at sand trout.

There were other infants with me. While father spoke, I could see her regurgitating food into their mouths.

During the late hours of night, a pair of figures in dirty brown outfits and scary horned masks sneaked up to our little home, armed with plasma rifles.

A second after my parents were introduced to me, these foul creatures took them away with a few cruel pulls of a trigger.

My entire family. Gone. Just like that. Mother and father, brothers, sisters, reduced to a pile of smoldering meat for the desert scum to whore out to the market.

The metal goggles of that wretched face turned my way, and I thought I was done for. Roasted in the shell, hard boiled, whatever you may call it.

I burrowed deep inside my egg, not knowing what else to do.

I heard a gurgling screech, then silence.

Curious, but afraid, I peered through the crack in my shell, and was startled to see a green face peering back at me.

His name was _Jabba_.

"The Tusken Raiders are gone," he said in his strange language. "You can come out now."

I looked around and saw this was true. The figures in brown lay around my family's nest, unconscious.

Still, I didn't trust the stranger.

He was about the size of a human boy, but had no legs, only a long snake-like lower body. His head was big and thick, merging with his neck, his arms wide and strong looking for a boy...ish...thing.

"I will not harm you," he said, but I confess I knew very little of any language, having just been born.

"What is your name?" he said. "Do you have one?"

"Salacious," I squawked.

He pointed to the rocks around us. " _Safe._ "

Although he meant well, he should not have helped me out of my egg. The exercise would have made me less weak and sickly.

When I at last lay in the cold air, I was hungry, tired and shivering. I couldn't even stand.

Jabba responded by doing something else well meaning but ill advised: Picking me up.

As he carried me away from there, I could feel my life fading away from me, my consciousness slipping into the dark.


	2. Chapter 2: Oola

The town doctor was named Zezdera, a beautiful wide hipped green lady with something like legs growing out of her head. Twileks, they were called. She wore tasteful medical scrubs, desert style tan.

Her place looked like a large domed hut, its interior a cave. The shelves contained an impressive array of medical tools, items I couldn't begin to understand.

I was sickly and shivering, wrapped in some smelly old rag this slug boy had found somewhere. The female had been examining an unclothed Jawa at the time we arrived (a rare sight, on account of Jawa religious laws).

The cockroach-like thing with glowing yellow eyes sat on the padded examination table, looking embarrassed. This one's eyes were red, and not glowing as they should, so Ms. Ipralpa was injecting some drug into its arm.

My new friend cleared his throat, impatiently shuffling his tail.

"I'll be just a moment, Jabby," she said, grabbing something around the unclothed Jawa's neck. "Cough, please."

The Jawa did so.

Making tsk noises, Ms. Ipralpa typed something in the computer, giving the patient a computer chip. "Give this to Wonzaru at the general store. That should take care of the rash."

The Jawa nodded, pulling on its dusty robes.

"You should wash those more often, especially being as sexually active as you are. You're aggravating the condition."

The Jawa mumbled something incoherently, waddling out.

Ms. Ipralpa cleared off a chrome table, indicating that I should be placed there.

She gave me a thorough examination, stretching out my little limbs.

"A Kowakian Monkey Lizard," she said. "You really shouldn't have taken it out of its nest. They can't survive on their own."

"It wasn't me," Jabba protested. "Honest! A bunch of Tusken Raiders came after its family, and-!"

She gave him a scolding look. "Some of my best friends are Tusken Raiders."

"Well these aren't them. They were meanies."

"Aww! He's cute!" said a voice. "What will you name him?"

Off to one side of the table, I saw her.

A little green kidd, a leg head just like the doctor. She had on a white sandplay overall dress. I found her rather cute myself.

"I don't know," Jabba said.

"Salacious," I squawked. It was what Kowakian babies say when they're hungry.

"Um...Crumbs," Jabba said.

"Salacious!" I repeated.

Ms. Ipralpa laughed. "I think he's hungry."

"Are you sure it's a he?" the girl said.

"Yes, Oola. I see the beginnings of a hilsorx stub directly underneath the tail."

I don't let just anyone play with my genitalia, so when the doctor's finger hovered around that spot, I clawed at it with my feet, squawking my indignation.

"You can help him, can't you?" Jabba asked the doctor.

She smiled, flexing her head legs a little. "I'm a little busy, Jabba, but tell you what. I'll give you the stuff to nurse little `Crumbs' to health. It'll be your responsibility to make sure he gets big and strong."

"I hope you do better with Crumbs than you did with that Womp Rat you used to have!" the little female mocked.

"Now, now, Oola," the doctor scolded as she injected some medications into me. She seemed to have done this with others of my race, for the needles were in and out before I could wiggle around and hurt myself.

She filled a bottle with a lavender liquid, handing it to Jabba. "This is a special baby formula. Little Crumbs looks hungry, so you'll want to give him some right away, then three other times today, four times a day afterwards. It's a special formula, designed to feed a variety of species, so don't start feeding it regular milk or table scraps until I say it's ready."

"It looks like you're going to be a mommy!" Oola joked.

Jabba bottle fed me right away, he and Oola taking turns with the bottle, actually fighting over it a couple times before Ms. Ipralpa scolded them both.

When I'd finished, Oola wrapped me up in a clean blanket, carrying me to the door, Jabba hauling a case of the purple stuff behind her. It was almost like they were playing Mommy and Daddy.

The bottles clattered to the floor when a pair of helmeted soldiers in red and black armor came stomping in, followed by a hunched over bug creature, clad in a sort of red-black robe with gold woven into it.

Ms. Ipralpa stiffened when she noticed him, looking fearful, angry.

"Sulwalid Argrillus," she said.

The bug gave a slight bow. "Ms. Ipralpa."

"What can I do for you, sir?"

" _I believe you know_. We've been doing some bookkeeping, and we've discovered some _discrepancies_. It seems that you owe the Sith twenty thousand credits."

"That's impossible!" Ms. Ipralpa cried. "We've checked our books, and double checked them. Our tribute to the Sith is there, down to the last penny."

"I think not."

Argrillus showed her a little computer. "Either you forgot to add in Line 12, _or you deliberately neglected to include it in your tribute._ "

"Sir, I had no intention of cheating the provisional government."

"Regardless, _you have_. "

The companions of the bug pulled out blasters.

"Please," Ms. Ipralpa begged. "Can't you see I don't have the money? What do you want me to do?"

"Sell some tools." He pointed at the formula. "For starters, I know for a fact you can get a fair sum from selling some of _that!_ "

"Never!" Jabba growled through his teeth. "It's for Crumbs! You can't just make up laws and bully people into taking their money!"

I squawked, covering my eyes with my hands.

"And what if no one buys it?" Ms. Ipralpa asked. "What if it's depreciated somewhat? How do you expect me to make the money back by just selling things?"

Argrillus ignored him. "I believe _that_ _daughter_ _of yours_ would fetch a pretty penny from the slave traders. They're always looking for someone small to clean out those refinery pipes."

Ms. Ipralpa began a shouted protest, but Argrillus silenced her with a wave of his claw. "I don't care how you do it, but get that money to me by this time tomorrow, or _drastic measures_ will be taken."

The creature and his guards marched back out the door.


End file.
